What is Bottled Water Anyways?

The bottled water industry is a billion dollar business. Every where you go you see where you can buy bottled water. There are those bottles you can buy for a few pennies. Then there are those bottles that cost several dollars. Water is an essential part to human life.

Most homes in the Untied States have running water. But still we pay hundreds of dollars every year to buy bottled water. If you live in a rural area you probably have well water. Often time's well water can be contaminated. People often feel that the water is not good for drinking. If you are on any public water system, your water has been treated. It can contain fluoride, chlorine or many other things. In both of these cases water often has a strange or unusual taste to it. While it may not be unpleasant, it is unwanted. People will buy bottled water to avoid these contaminates and taste.

Bottled water comes in all types of varieties. You have spring water, filtered water, flavored water, sparkling water and the list goes on and on. There are different waters for every taste and preferences. Bottle water being such a big business, they want to market to everyone. Everyone has different taste, so there are a wide variety of waters out there.

Purified bottle water is water that has been distilled, deionized or gone through reverse osmosis or some other process to meet the definition of purified. It is basically water that has gone through some process to take out everything but the pure water. There should be no contaminates after these processes are preformed.

Artesian Water or Artesian Well Water is water that comes from a confined aquifer. An aquifer is an underground water layer that has gravel sand or permeable rock. It is usually not treated in any way.

Spring Water is bottled water from a source of water that flows freely and naturally from underground to the surface. It can only be obtained from where the water comes to the surface or from a hole bored into underground formation of the spring.

Drinking water is bottled water that may, or may not have flavors, extracts or essences added. It can have no calories. It may though have a very low amount of sodium added to it. Drinking bottled water can have no sweeteners or chemical additives.

There are many choices out there. It is often said that bottled waters are just bottled tap waters. Independent test have been performed on various bottled waters that find it no better than tap water. There have also been taste test that have shown that tap water is higher in ranking than some of the bottled waters. It is all a matter of preference and perceptions. Bottled water is a big business and has been for many years. It will continue to be. To me there is a taste difference in waters. Read the labels. Get to know your waters. Try different ones. You may find you like one over the other. Make an informed decision. But most of all get those eight glasses of water a day that is recommended.